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choices, the Sanguinar would have been long extinct. And if that happened, it would be only a matter of time before the Theronai and Slayers fell as well, and the human race was left with no protectors.
    The ends justified the means. It had to. After all the things Logan had done, it simply had to.

Chapter 4
    H ope couldn’t sleep. As tired as she was, every time she closed her eyes, she saw Logan’s face. Beautiful. Suffering. Powerful.
    She wished she didn’t know his name. Somehow, knowing made him seem more real. Without that scrap of information, it would have been easy to pretend that everything that had happened tonight was a figment of her imagination.
    Heaven knew her mind wasn’t exactly a fortress. Whatever had stripped her life’s memories away had left its scars. She saw things that couldn’t possibly exist. Felt things that could not be real.
    And right now, she was sure she could feel Logan’s presence nearby, moving about the city. There was a warmth emanating from him, like sunlight on her skin.
    Part of her willed him to come closer so she could bask in that warmth, while the saner part of her wished he’d just go away—so far she couldn’t feel a thing.
    Hope rolled onto her side, facing him. “You’re not real,” she whispered into the darkness of her bedroom.
    Somehow, saying it out loud only made it worse. Something had happened tonight that put her in the hospital, and if she couldn’t even trust herself enough to believe what she saw, then she was much worse off than she thought.

    Something was wrong with Sibyl. Cain knew it. She hadn’t come out of her room since her parents’ deaths two weeks ago. She’d hardly spoken to him except to tell him she was fine and to ask him to bring her some of her mother’s clothes.
    Everyone mourned differently, and the distance that had been between Sibyl and her mother was no doubt adding to the pain of grief now. Perhaps Gilda’s clothes gave Sibyl some kind of comfort. Cain deeply hoped so.
    At least she’d been eating. The trays of food he’d left at her door were always returned empty. If not for that, Cain’s fatherly instincts would have kicked in and he’d have removed her from her room by force.
    So far, it hadn’t come to that.
    Cain retrieved the empty tray and rapped softly on her door. “Sibyl.”
    “I’m sleeping.”
    No, she wasn’t. He could tell from her voice she was wide-awake. Cain had been watching over her for centuries and she couldn’t fool him with such a bad lie.
    “You need to come out. We need to talk.”
    “Talking changes nothing.” Her voice sounded odd and deep, as if she were sick, only she never got sick. She had to have been crying.
    “You’re wrong. You of all people should know how powerful words can be.”
    When Sibyl was eight, she’d promised her mother she’d never grow up. And she hadn’t. Centuries later, she was still trapped in the body of a child.
    “Go away. Please.”
    Cain sighed. He was a patient man. He’d give her more time. Just not too much. Staying locked away in her room like this wasn’t healthy. He loved her too much to let her destroy herself with grief.
    “I’ll be back in a couple of hours,” he promised. “We’ll talk then.”
    And if not then, he’d keep at her until she relented. Little Sibyl was nothing if not stubborn, and it was Cain’s job to see to it that she didn’t suffer because of the inherited streak.
    One way or another, she was coming out of that room and facing reality. And when she did, Cain would be there for her as he always had been.
     
    Sibyl held her breath until she heard Cain’s heavy steps fade as he moved down the hall.
    She almost asked him to bring her more food, but she feared he’d figure out that something was wrong. Terribly wrong.
    Sibyl tugged on the sleeve of Gilda’s gown, trying to hide her wrists. They were all wrong. Bony. Too long. Everything about her new body was wrong.
    She took a lurching step forward, tripping